Sukh Ram restrained from disbursing discretionary grant

SHIMLA, June 12: The Himachal Pradesh High Court yesterday restrained former Union telecommunications minister Sukh Ram from distributing a...

SHIMLA, June 12: The Himachal Pradesh High Court yesterday restrained former Union telecommunications minister Sukh Ram from distributing any amount out of the rupees one crore annual discretionary grant available to Members of Parliament (MPs) for the development of their respective constituencies.

The order was issued by Justice P K Palli here on a civil suit filed by Narbu Ram, a vice-chairman of Panchayat Samiti Lahaul and Spiti. The plaintiff is a voter in the Mandi parliamentary constituency of Sukh Ram.

This is perhaps the first time that a voter has sought the intervention of the judiciary on issues relating to accountability of public representatives.The judge issued notices returnable on July 4 to Sukh Ram, the state government, the centre and the Deputy Commissioners (DC) of six districts falling within the constituency. The DC’s were summoned as the discretionary grant of the MPs are disbursed through them.

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The suit filed through senior advocate H S Mattewal and R S Rai, additional advocate general Punjab, along with Sanjiv Sharma and Shravan Dogra, alleges that Sukh Ram had misused his office and was ignoring the requirements of areas other than Mandi.

The suit alleged that Sukh Ram had disbursed a major amount of the money for the MP local area development scheme in Mandi alone. Mandi Sadar district, currently represented in the state Assembly by his son Anil Sharma, also received a major share, leaving the other five districts starved of funds.Mattewal contended that elected representatives as public servants and were legally bound to act in fairness. He said Sukh Ram’s act of ignoring areas outside Mandi smacked of favouritism.